Leading polar explorer Pen Hadow has said he cannot afford to fail in his latest mission to the Arctic.

Hadow, along with navigator Ann Daniels and photographer Martin Hartley, will embark on a groundbreaking mission to the North Pole in February to measure the thickness of the remaining sea ice.

The Catlin Arctic Survey was officially launched at a press conference in central London on Thursday and Hadow admitted there was no room for error.

He said: “This expedition is about more than just survival and reaching the geographic North Pole.

“During this mammoth expedition we will gather the essential data that scientists need to more accurately determine when the permanent floating sea ice will disappear altogether. We cannot afford to fail on this mission – there is too much at stake.

“As a matter of honour, we will gather as much data we can.”

The team have just returned from a two week training expedition to Broughton Island in Canada where they pushed their bodies and equipment to the limit to ensure the real thing goes without a hitch.

Hadow said the team battled temperatures of -35c and days shrouded with 20 hours of darkness. He said: “This short expedition was, in many ways, a reality check.

“We’ve clocked up dozens of polar expeditions between us but it’s only once you get back on the ice that you really remember what it’s like to live under such harsh conditions.”

The three-month expedition will see the team trek more than 1,200km, measuring the floating sea ice to help scientists determine how long it will survive.

Their radar system will take millions of measurements over the course of the expedition and is able to accurately differentiate between ice and snow - which was previously impossible.

The data will be analysed by Professor Wieslaw Maslowski at the department of oceanography, in Monterey, California, and the findings will be given to key world decision makers at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in November.